Epilogue

The Sisters Are Alright

Black women are not seeking special treatment—just to be treated as human beings of worth. We are looking for compassion. We are searching for good faith and the benefit of the doubt. We are hoping for relief from twisted images of ourselves and the burden of always having to first disprove what people think they know of us. If society will not give us this—if our communities will not demand this for us …

Black women will still be alright.

Collectively, we have troubles, yes—some very real and very serious, others the result of society’s feverish imagination.

But we are alright.

Life is too short and too precious for us to be anything but.

“I’m alright, because I can’t not be. It would cost me too much,” says Bianca Mac, who transitioned during the hostile Trump presidency. “I know my worth and my value. I know what I’m capable of. I pull those things together and I make a person who is alright in the end.”

“Tell them, as Troy Maxson told his son in August Wilson’s Fences, ‘Don’t go through life worried about whether someone likes you. You best be concerned that they do right by you,’” preaches Deesha Philyaw.

“Let folks perceive you however they want—Jezebel, angry Black woman, welfare queen—as long as they get the hell out of the way and let you do your thing. Stop looking for approval and permission from people who hate you and want to see you fail and stop spending all your energy railing against their perceptions. Give yourself a daily/weekly/monthly allotment of outrage, and then be about the business of building.”

Let the church say “Amen.”

Deesha feels strongly that systemic racism and sexism need to be acknowledged and fought, but she adds that Black women also need to be living as we are fighting.

“Raising conscious children, creating extraordinary art, getting the best revenge by living well in spite of racism and sexism. If I spend all my time reacting, I can’t act. I can’t initiate and steer the course of my life.

“Racism and sexism no longer hurt my feelings. I’m not shocked by them. I’m not shocked that somebody thinks black-face is hilarious or that dark-skinned girls are ugly. I know that they are wrong, and instead of trying to convince them of anything, I just reaffirm what I know to be true by the stories I choose to tell in my writing, by the kinds of dolls I buy for my children, by my personal presentation, by what I put out into the world.”

It seems that most Black women agree. Even as we worry about paying our bills, maintaining our health, raising our children, keeping ourselves safe, and facing institutional biases, most of us are happy to be exactly who we are. A 2012 nationwide survey by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 67 percent of Black women say they have high self-esteem. Eighty-five percent of us said we are satisfied with our lives, and 73 percent say that now is a good time to be a Black woman.¹

I asked several women why, despite tremendous pressure to feel differently, they are happy being Black women—I asked them how they achieved “alrightness.”

“I’m alright,” says Heather Carper, “because I understand human nature. [For so many people] to have spent so much time, effort, and expense to denigrate, defile, and destroy us, I know that my Black femaleness must be ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ as the old church folks say. It cannot be bought. It cannot be imitated. And it cannot be destroyed.”

Deesha says, “The racists and the sexists have failed miserably in trying to convince me that I don’t matter, that I am less than. I spent the first thirty-five years of my life feeling that way, and not even because of racism or sexism. I decided that I didn’t have any more time to waste living in fear of what other people thought of me, which really isn’t living at all. Defining myself for myself and not giving that personal power away is what makes me alright. Not needing a racist or sexist person’s permission for any fucking thing is what makes me alright. Not needing anyone to like me or approve of my politics or my aesthetic is what makes me alright. I have to be alright because I need my daughters to know that they are alright.”

Jamyla Bennu says, “I am completely happy with my identity and it has never occurred to me not to be. I am in love with my Black woman self. I am in love with Black womanhood.

“I exalt in how many ways there are for us to be uniquely beautiful—the shapes and shades in which we walk the world. I love our laughter and fierceness and care and energy and exhaustion and brilliance and creativity. That perceptions other than this exist is honestly puzzling to me.”

In a nod to literary great Zora Neale Hurston, Jamyla adds: “How could anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It is beyond me.”

Ebony Murphy-Root also quotes Sister Zora: “I love myself when I am laughing … and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.”²

It is not surprising to hear Black women dropping wisdom from a famous foremother. From our earliest years, Black women draw strength and inspiration from our heritage and the women who came before us. We learn from them how to be okay, even when the world seems mad.

“I am my ancestors!” Morgan Overton says. “My being here is revolutionary within itself. My walk is a protest. [My fore-mothers] couldn’t even have imagined a quarter of the things I have accomplished. I’m an embodiment of them. I know that I’m enough and that’s what keeps me going. That’s why I’m all right.”

Fatima Thomas believes that although Black women are not unbreakable, we are “even at our lowest points, survivors. It’s the small things for me that add up to who I am—something as simple as getting out of the bed when I’d rather ball up and cry for days. The fact that I can do that … the fact that with much less than I have … women who came before me and have this skin in common with me just kept getting up. The strong Black woman trope is a double-edged sword. As much as I want to just be, I actually am far stronger than most. I love that about us.”

“We are alright because we recognize our worth as individuals and appreciate the knowledge that brought us into that space,” Deborah Latham-White adds.

Our strength lies in the Black woman collective—past but also present. Jamyla encourages Black women to seek empowering relationships with other women and to make conscious decisions to support and nurture one another.

“We can change our personal narratives. I mean that in the way in which we tell our stories about ourselves to ourselves and to each other, the things we expect for ourselves.”

While everyone whispers about our wrong, we can nod knowingly to each other and celebrate our right. When we are at our best, we practice this sisterhood across identities and experiences.

Bre Rivera, a trans sister, acknowledges that she is okay, in part “because there were cis women who were wise enough to actually, like, love on me, protect me and stand in the gap.”

As a collective, we are something special—an unmatched force.

Halimah puts it succinctly, “Where would we be without us?”

Indeed.

What is wrong with Black women?

Simple answer: not a damned thing.

We’re not perfect, but we’re no more flawed than anyone else. In fact, most Black women believe it’s pretty good to be us. We are not Jezebels or Mammies or Matriarchs or Sapphires. Or not just. Some of us are workhorses. Some of us are angry. Some of us are promiscuous. We are all and none of these things. Black women are human—with all the complexity that implies.

We have facets like diamonds. The trouble is the people who refuse to see us sparkling.